It's not a scavenger hunt.

An entire generation went on the road to find themselves. I've read some of their work, and I think they failed. They seem pretty dang lost to me.

Life isn't about finding yourself. It's true, though, that sometimes we can lose sight of who we are. Life is unpredictable, and we are easily distracted. We get caught up. We get turned around to the point that we actually believe our means to be our objectives. We define ourselves by outside events. We make false arguments against our own authenticity, and we feel that because we are living in a way that we couldn't have predicted, we have lost some vital part of ourselves.

We haven't lost ourselves. We are simply not recognizing how our selves fit into this new setting. Regardless of what is happening to us, we cannot deny who we are. We are enduring. We are strong. And a gem is a gem, whether it is still encased in igneous stone, or buried in the bed of a stream, or cut into a thousand facets that catch the light.

Finding the gem is one thing. But taking it from rough stone to polished beauty--that's another. It is the supreme act of life to allow the circumstances in which we find ourselves, tumbled and sometimes broken, ground and polished--to bring out of us the treasure that is there. To reflect light and color like a precious stone, whatever our setting.